November 2017 Special Education Directors' e-News

department of education

Special Education Directors' e-News

November 2017

Contents

Special Education Division

  • December Special Education Directors' Forum
  • Troops to Teachers
  • School-Based Diversion Pilot Grants - due December 1, 2017
  • Microgrants for Transitioning Students
  • Parent Survey
  • Care and Treatment Survey
  • Documentation Required for Health-Related Services
  • Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist
  • IEPs for Learners who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
  • State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind Opportunities

State Board of School Administrators: Kinkel Named Executive Director

Compliance and Assistance Division: New Special Education Compliance Training


Special Education Division News

Director: Robyn Widley

December Special Education Directors' Forum

The final Special Education Directors' Forum of the year will be held Friday, December 8, 2017, beginning at 9 a.m. in Rooms 15 and 16, Conference Center B, Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), 1500 Highway 36 W., Roseville, Minnesota 55113. The December Forum features a 60th anniversary celebration of Minnesota's special education law along with updates on compliance, finance, federal reporting, person-centered planning and significant disproportionality. The forum will be available for remote viewing courtesy of MediaSite. Watch the Special Education Directors' listserv for more information. We look forward to seeing you in December.

Contact Tom Delaney for more information.

troops to teachers

Troops to Teachers is Proud to Serve Again

Looking for highly qualified Special Education teachers? The Department of Defense-sponsored Troops to Teachers (TTT) program is here to serve you and the people of Minnesota. The program recruits K-12 teachers of all types from the U.S. military and veteran populations, guides them through teacher training and certification and provides job placement assistance. Incentives are provided for teaching in high needs and rural schools.

For more information, contact Dr. Charles Rick, Minnesota TTT representative, at 218-780-0343 or the TTT region office at 406-994-4173.

Grantees Sought for School-Based Diversion Pilot

DHS is requesting proposals from qualified grantees to pilot the Minnesota Model of school-based diversion for students with co-occurring disorders.

The model is designed to support students who have been or are at risk for being ticketed or arrested by school resource officers. It is a method to review school incidents and divert youth with co-occurring disorders to mental and chemical health services in order to treat underlying causes of disruptive behavior.

View the request for proposals on the DHS website. Up to six grantees may be awarded $19,500 from December 22, 2017, until June 30, 2018, with the option for one-year extensions. Proposals are due by December 1, 2017.

For more information, contact Thomas Delaney (Supervisor, Interagency Partnerships) at 651-582-8324.

 

Microgrants Available for Transitioning Students

The Arc Minnesota has notified us that they are administering a DHS-funded program providing microgrants to help Minnesota residents 18 and older with disabilities overcome barriers to postsecondary transition. The Minnesota Microgrant Partnership offers small amounts of money to persons with disabilities to achieve their competitive employment, inclusive housing and community integration goals. We would appreciate your informing staff who work with transitioning students of this opportunity.

Applicants may provide required information through the partnership website, including detailed information about the need for the project, its goals, plan of action and a budget. The proposal must be accompanied by supportive budget documentation. Should the proposal be approved, an agreement which provides clarification or more information about the project may be requested. The Arc can help applicants complete the process. For more information on the application process, see the partnership FAQs.

While most microgrants will range from $100 to $1,000, larger amounts up to $2,000 may be considered.

For more information on the Minnesota Microgrant Partnership, contact Wendy Gerlach at 651-604-8070 or contact Susan Sochacki at 651-604-8056.

minnesota microgrant partnership

2017-2018 Special Education Parent Survey

Each spring MDE’s Special Education Division invites parents of students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) to complete a parent survey. Through the survey, parents have an opportunity to share feedback on their student’s IEP, the IEP process, teachers and administrators. MDE shares a summary of parent responses with the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) as part of the State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR) and with the general public through the data district profiles. In addition, parents look forward to their invitation to the parent survey as it is their chance to share the celebrations and challenges they have experienced over the school year.

Because many parents look forward to receiving the survey and because the results are used as part of Minnesota’s annual report, the parent survey is an important feature of MDE’s reporting to both USDOE and our stakeholders. But the survey cannot be successful without your assistance. MDE relies upon special education directors to provide contact information for the sampled families (i.e., mailing address and email and phone numbers, when available).

At this point, you do not need to do anything. If your district is selected as part of the sample for the 2017-2018 survey, we will contact you in February with further information, including a timeline for the survey process. If you do not hear from us by March 1, 2017, your district was not part of the sample for the 2017-2018 survey.

For more information, contact Kirsten Rewey at 651-582-8638.

Care and Treatment Survey Coming Soon

This is a notice that MDE's Special Education Division will be sending out a brief survey to special education directors and designated district care and treatment contacts within the next few weeks. The survey will help us determine topic preferences for a care and treatment symposium and instructional webinar(s). When the survey is sent to you, please ensure that it is completed in the amount of time indicated in the survey instructions. We want to provide timely and relevant information, so your input will be greatly appreciated. If you have questions, please contact Lochlan Stuart at 651-582-8348.

School District Documentation of Start and End Times for Health-Related Services Required

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) has announced that effective February 1, 2018, school districts will be required to document start and end times for each IEP or Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) health-related service covered under Medical Assistance (MA), including MA-covered initial evaluations, reevaluations and assessments. The school district must have this information readily available if Minnesota Health Care Programs (MHCP) or the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requests it. This documentation is necessary to accurately reflect the actual amount of face-to-face time the service provider spends with the child. More information is available from the DHS website.

For more information, contact Jenny Roth (DHS) at 651-431-2622.

Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist (VCSL) Training

First published in 2013, the Visual Communication and Sign Language Checklist (VCSL) was created to assess and monitor the development of expressive American Sign Language (ASL) in infants, toddlers and preschoolers (0-5) who are deaf or hard of hearing. Many teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing (TDHH) have been using this tool already. With normative information developed through observations of the language development of a national sample of deaf children from signing families, the VCSL is the first assessment tool of its kind. It is considered a valuable tool to assist families and professionals in program planning, development of IFSPs and IEPs and reporting young children’s language developmental outcomes to MDE.

Laurene Simms, Ph.D., Gallaudet University; Sharon Baker, Ed. D., University of Tulsa; and Diane Clark, Ph.D., Gallaudet University are the authors of the VCSL. See their article on the VCSL from Sign Language Studies and more information on the Gallaudet University website. On November 2, 2017, Dr. Simms presented a one-day training on the use and scoring of the VCSL to a select group of current educators from around the state, deaf mentors and University of Minnesota TDHH candidates at the Collaborative Experience Conference. Educators who received the training will be sharing information back in their school districts and regions. In addition, the Minnesota Low Incidence Projects has purchased a copy of the VCSL manual and informational materials for each regional Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) team and the Minnesota Regional Library for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

For more information, contact Mary Cashman-Bakken.

IEPs for Learners who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

The Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind & Hard of Hearing Minnesotans (MNCDHH) along with a team of teachers and parents have developed the document, "Developing a Language and Communication Focused IEP: A Discussion Guide."  The purpose of this guide is to help parents and teachers of students who are deaf or hard of hearing to understand the power of writing a communication and language focused IEP. The guide includes a list of guiding questions and evidence-based resources to meet the legal mandates of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 and Title II. View the discussion guide on the MNCDHH website.

In addition to the written discussion guide, MNCDHH partnered with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to develop a series of webinars that will help parents understand the contents of the guide. View the parent-friendly webinar series on the MNCDHH website.

MNCDHH and MDE would like teachers to refer to the guide and use it in their practice. Starting January 2018, a weekly series of mini-lessons for teachers will be sent out on the Deaf/Hard of Hearing listserv hosted by MDE. The lessons will include a short clip from the parent webinar series with a list of the discussion prompts from the discussion guide. The goal of the mini-lesson series is that teachers and parents alike will have access to information that will inform their practice with students who are deaf/hard of hearing.

Please encourage your teachers of students who are deaf/hard of hearing to take a few minutes out of their week to review the mini-lessons. Teacher licensure renewal clock hours will be offered upon completion of a final evaluation.

For details, contact Anna Paulson at MNCDHH.

State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind Opportunities

The State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind (SRC-B) is seeking new members. SRC-B is looking for more applications from potential members to represent parents, industry and advocacy organizations. The SRC-B gives advice and recommendations to the State Services for the Blind (SSB) program about the services they offer, their priorities and the products they make available through our Communication Center. Mandated by both state and federal law, the SRC-B meets at least six times a year in St. Paul. Its members are appointed by the governor to a three-year term. The council must have a majority of members who are blind or visually impaired and not employed by SSB.

Please share this information with families or others who may be interested in serving on the SRC-B. For more information about the Council vacancies please visit the SRC-B website or you may contact Carol Pankow at 651-539-2272.

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State Board of School Administrators News

Executive Director: Dr. Tony Kinkel

Anthony Kinkel

Kinkel Named School Administrators Board Director

As Executive Director of Minnesota’s Board for School Administrators, Dr. Anthony G. (Tony) Kinkel brings a unique blend of teaching, administrative, policy making and leadership experience back to Minnesota. A native of Park Rapids, Minnesota, Dr. Kinkel is a graduate of the University of Minnesota – Duluth and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he received his Ed.D. He brings 32 years of experience to the job. 

Elected at age 24 to the Minnesota House of Representatives, Dr. Kinkel served from 1986 to 1998 where he was appointed by the Speaker of the House to chair the Higher Education Finance Division and was elected by his peers to serve on Education Commission of the States, a national organization of state policy makers who hold educational leadership positions in their respective states. From 1999 to 2002, Dr. Kinkel served in the Minnesota State Senate where he served as Vice-Chair of the Senate Higher Education Finance Division. In addition to serving in the state senate, Dr. Kinkel worked as the Dean of General Education at Northwest Technical College in Minnesota, one of the state’s largest technical colleges with five separate campuses. Prior to being an academic dean, Kinkel taught Political Science at Central Lakes Community College in Brainerd, Minnesota and was a high school social studies teacher and assistant basketball coach at Sandstone, Minnesota where he was named the local Farmers Union Teacher of the Year in 1985. 

Leaving the legislature in 2002, Dr. Kinkel was chosen in a nationwide search to lead Maryland’s community colleges as state director for the Maryland Association of Community Colleges. While in Maryland, Kinkel led 16 independent community colleges, representing them before the Governor, the Maryland Higher Education Commission and the Maryland General Assembly. 

In 2004, Dr. Kinkel was chosen by the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees to serve as Chancellor of the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville (UACCB) located in rural, north-central Arkansas. While at Arkansas, UACCB increased its academic rigor to the 90th percentile as measured by the Community College Student Survey of Engagement, 2006. 

In 2007, Kinkel was chosen to lead Colorado’s second largest community college, Pikes Peak Community College, a college consisting of four campuses with 14,000 students and over 1,000 full and part-time employees. In 2008, Dr. Kinkel was named President of the Year by the Colorado Community College Student Association. Kinkel also received the Innovator of the Year Award from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for becoming the first community college in the nation to partner with a charter school to build a joint facility in 2008. 

Selected to lead Kansas’ largest technical in 2010, Kinkel and his colleagues at Wichita Area Technical College (WATC) managed and operated the National Center for Aviation Training (NCAT). NCAT was selected by the National Association of Manufacturing to create and develop national standards in aviation curriculum. In recognition of WATC’s commitment to its employees, the Wichita Business Journal named WATC as one of the “Top Six Places to Work” in 2014. 

Most recently, Kinkel led Motlow State Community College to becoming the fastest-growing college in the state of Tennessee for three consecutive years. With the help of a great team, Motlow State became the number one performing community college in the state as identified by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission Performance Funding Model. Motlow’s retention rates became among the highest in the college’s history including the highest rate of retention for Tennessee Promise students. 

Dr. Kinkel and his wife, Melva, have two children, a son Brett, age 30, who lives in Kansas City and Kellen, age 16, who is a junior in high school. The family plans to live in Stillwater. 

“I am so honored to be coming home to Minnesota, a state that leads the country in education. We plan to get up every day and do everything in our power to nurture, to support, to train and to license the very best educational administrators,” Kinkel said. “After working in five states, I realize more than ever that it is a very competitive environment for Minnesota students to become successful in a new economy focused on artificial intelligence and automation. Having the best educational leaders will give our state, and our children, the competitive edge they need to secure good jobs.”

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